PlungerMan, when you got your CCs working, what does the Auth Status say? Mine says "Waiting for CP Auth" which I guess is the problem.

Sorry aobut your troubles, hang in there, they'll get it right.
It still says,,,, Waiting for CP Auth, even though they work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Slowdrag

Can anyone in the Long Beach, CA area that's had S3 cablecard setup success
Thanks.

I have SA, sorry dont know the firmware. Besides i don't think that is the problem, it seems to be all about proper syncing from them to us.Your in LB, they have a hand up on it now. I would expect you'll be OK, but them again you never know. Expect the worst and hope for the best. Good luck

Had my Charter visit today too. Nice tech, but he'd never done a cablecard before. I had to help a bit here and there, but everything seemed to go okay, they authorized the cards, and the test channels came in fine. But after the guy left, I noticed that I wasn't getting all of my channes (big surprise there), and one of the cards is popping up the MMI(?) screen (the one that wants you to call the cable company).

So I, like everyone else, will pull the splitters out of the line, and have Charter re-hit the cards tonight when I get home.

I think I'm just going to stop worrying for a while and chill. I ran my cable straight into the Tivo and called Charter to hit the cards. Nothing changed instantly but when I started talking to the next level support person I started getting channels trickling in again. She told me that sometimes it takes up to 24 hours for everything to come in after a CableCARD install. You'd think that analog/basic would be the first thing to come in rather than the last, but whatever. It seems to be resolving itself slowly but surely.

My visit is tomorrow, in San Luis Obispo, CA. Lets just hope it goes well! I had a cable card "attempt" in January with my TV (was stuck on "updating firmware"), and the tech left telling me they don't work. However the same tech hooked up my MOXI several months later and said they had all the cable card issues resolved and they install like cake now. I know we are on a SciAtl system here.

A coworker was talked out of ordering his cablecards from Charter in St. Louis yesterday. The CSR informed him that he'd only receive one each of the various premium channels such as HBO, SHOtime etc.

I trust this is just another example of a poorly informed rep. Anyone in the St. Louis area having any difficulties receiving all of the available channels (with the exception of the PPV and Indemand products) with a cablecard?

I am able to get all of the channels in my packages (extended basic, HBO/Cinemax/Showtime, HD Tier) fine here in Clayton (Overland lineup), though it took two trips to get it done...

The first guy (Monday) put in the cards and took off; apparently he never called in the activation info to Charter. The second guy (Wednesday) got everything sorted out, even checking the signal strength and replacing some crappy splitters. No real hassles... we had the 161-4 error come up on one card, but it cleared itself after a few minutes.

ChuckyBox, hey, did you get to play with your S3 after you got back? Any news?

As of this morning, one of my cards appears to get most, if not all of the correct channels (notably it is getting HBO, Showtime, and the HD stuff). So that appears to bode well for the future. The other card is still not working. I called Charter this morning and after going through a series of menus and an annoying voice-prompted self-diagnosis procedure, I ended up talking to an idiot that barely spoke english and who wouldn't believe that they could activate the card from their equipment (the solution offered was for me to go to the local office and get another cablecard). She talked to her supervisor who sounded as clueless as her. So I've got an appointment for another installer call next Tuesday, but I'll try a few more calls before then.

I've only got the general Charter customer service phone number. If someone has a better, more direct number for the western San Gabriel valley, please post it or PM me.

Aggets,
Keep on them, there are a few in the Madison central office that know what is going on.
If you can get them to talk with Megan at dispatch you will be running in no time. She seems to know exactly what & how to set up your account on their end.

She doesn't work on Saturday... and of course that is when they are bring my 2nd card out!

I received my S3 yesterday, and despite 2 charter CSRs telling me that I could install the cards myself, when I went to the local office to pick up the cards, they said "we don't have cards, they require an install". So after a call to Charter, I arranged to have them installed this morning (no install charge because their call record showed that the CSRs had given me wrong info about self-install).

The installer got here at 9:45am and was very nice and willing to help, but told me that he had never done ANY kind of cable card install before. I said that's okay we'll work through it.

He gave me the cards and I wrote down the 2 lines of info on each card (SA PowerKey cards), and told him we need to do these one at a time. We installed the first card, it came up and we got the CableCard ID and Host ID from the screen. He then called charter and they asked for the first line of info printed on the cards. They then told him to wait for a call from another support group who, I assume, handles actual cable card activation.

Immediately, the card info on the screen changed status to a message like "this card is not configured". When the guy from the support group called, we gave him the CC ID and Host ID and then a few minutes later went to test channels -- analog and in-the-clear HD channels worked, but no digital or premiums. The tech said that the administrative folks coded it wrong.

He wanted us to do the other card. This time when the config screen came up we couldn't immediately get to the CC ID and Host ID because the charter person had entered the card info discussed previously and the card was showing as not configured. After a while, we got the "updating firmware" message, and waited about 15-20 min., and it finally completed (nail-biting time). The ID info was now accessible and we completed this.

The installer then called back the charter admin and after another 15 min. or so finally got digital and premium (with Starz added in which I don't subscribe to). I tested a bunch of stations and he left at about 11 am (1 hr 15 min. most of the time on hold).

I then completed guided setup, and when I began experimenting I found that a small number of HD channels (CineMaxHD , the new StarzHD, Universal HD, and TNT HD) would tune in, but within 2 seconds the screen would drop to the CC ID/Host ID screen. It appears that the station tunes in, and then the CC decides its not authorized and shuts it off. Bummer!

I called Tivo, spoke to a friendly and reasonably knowledgable CSR and after some diagnostics (checking signal strength, etc.), she said that the problem appeared to be with the cable co. and that I should call them back and ask to hit the cards again or to replace the cable cards!!!

Reluctently, I called Charter, who tried hitting the cards, but still same problem. They then paged the installer, who called me. We both think it is a problem with authorization and he is speaking to his supervisor, and I am currently waiting for a call back from him.

So at this stage, the install is a partial success. Hopefully it will get straightened out. So near and yet so far!

The moral of the story is check EVERY channel before the cable guy leaves.

Hey ChuckyBox, actually, if you talked to the tech guy, he could actually make an appointment for you with possibly a better time. I'm getting Louie again on Sunday because he doesn't work on Saturdays. He knows a lady who knows how to deal with CCs. When I see him on Sunday, I'll ask him for a direct line to get to their tech support without having to go through the automated hell. Yeah, that automated thing totally annoys me because they don't have an option for CCs and so they think it's the TV that is programmed wrong. Yeah right! Good luck with everything!!!

aggets, definitely report back on how it goes, there are at least a couple other people on this thread from Madison.

tech arrived 15 min early was not real thrilled to see my tivo said this was his third one first one took an hour second 3.5 hours he got the card working in slot 1 after 1 bad card and much runaround from dispatch (dispatch told him to call headend headend told him to call dispatch) finally got card 1 working completely card 2 is not working yet dispatch told them to wait awihle so tech left said he would call or stop back later another appt. may be nescarry. tech was here 2 hours he spent approx 1.5 of those hours on hold with dispatch which i think is just ridiculous how does charter expect happy customers and happy installers when 75% of techs time is spent on hold? tech seemed knowledgeable but clearly frustrated at all the time spent on hold will update later on cc 2 status

My Charter rep just left and we successfully installed both cards. And it only took 6 hours!

Here's what I've learned. When you make your appointment, make sure the rep brings SEVERAL cards with them. We went through 6 cards to find two that worked. We're not sure why there were so many that didn't work, but we did find that the newer the card, the more likely it was to work.

Here are some tips. When you install the card, if you get the screen that lists the Cable Card ID and the Host ID, then you're pretty much OK. First you need to reboot the box (we rebooted BEFORE re-running the setup). Then run setup. In between each reboot and running the setup, Charter sent a "super EMM" to the card which is apparently some sort of "ping" to wake up the card.

We had the most problem with the second card. We initally got the "this card is updating the firmware" message on the second card. We waited for four hours and this message never went away. (we later learned through another tech, that this is a common message for TV's that use CableCards and that it usually NEVER sucessfully downloads the firmware). We tried this with TWO cards and niether worked. The THIRD card we tried we got the Cable Card ID and Host ID screen right away.

So we had Charter send a super EMM, rebooted, sent another Super EMM and then re-ran the setup again. This time it worked!!!!

Now here's some bad news. Apparently there are a handful of channels that can not be broadcast through the card. We've all heard about the PPV channels, but apparently our local Charter office transmits some non-PPV channels alongside the same packet with the PPV channels. We "think" this is why these channels aren't working. For instance the LOGO chanel in San Luis Obispo, happens to be sent in the same packet with the Playboy Channel, and some PPV chanels....so LOGO (which is a premium channel) doesn't play. We had the same problem with four other channels.

So I've only been completely up and running for about 30 minutes, so I'm sure I don't know all the bugs yet...but for all you Charter subscribers that are being told it can't be done....it CAN...you just have to find a patient Charter Rep.

Well the Tech just left, and everything worked smooth as could be. Spent most of his time on hold. Dispatch was very nice, as was the tech. He followed the directions to the letter. Waited for hits, and both tuners now get all the channels.

Wierd thing is, my TV has a cable card slot and we tried to install one in there. Everything went smoothly, but never got the hits. All the pay channels just said "not authorized". I wasn't too concerned to I told him just to take the card and I will try another day.

If it was happening with the MOXI, it sounds like something on Charter's end. I guess I'd start with them.

When I had the MOXI I contacted them about three times regarding this, and looks like it still isn't fixed (I had the MOXI about 6 months ago). I wish I discovered it when the tech was here. I know its happening all over my area as someone else I know has the same problem with with their MOXI.

Right now, I am just tickled that the cable card install went so smooth! Setting up my season passes right now

Now here's some bad news. Apparently there are a handful of channels that can not be broadcast through the card. We've all heard about the PPV channels, but apparently our local Charter office transmits some non-PPV channels alongside the same packet with the PPV channels. We "think" this is why these channels aren't working. For instance the LOGO chanel in San Luis Obispo, happens to be sent in the same packet with the Playboy Channel, and some PPV chanels....so LOGO (which is a premium channel) doesn't play. We had the same problem with four other channels.

--Robert

I am in San Luis Obispo, and had the install this morning. Mine took about 2 hours and most of that was on hold with dispatch. The actuall install would have taken about 30 minutes otherwise. We didn't have to really do anything but read off the numbers, get the signal sent, and everything worked.

What are the other 4 channels? When I tuned to LOGO I received a message to call Charter. When I tune to KKFXHD, I just get a blank screen. Do you get this as well?